Draymond fires back at Tristan Thompson, challenges him to meet this summer

OAKLAND -- While being escorted from the court Thursday night, Cavaliers center Tristan Thompson gestured for Warriors forward Draymond Green to meet him outside of Oracle Arena.

That was in the final seconds of Game 1 of the NBA Finals, after Thompson was ejected for committing a flagrant foul on Shaun Livingston, which happened seconds before Thompson shoved a basketball off the side of Green’s face.

If it’s a fight Thompson wants, Green apparently is willing to go there, but not now.

“I can’t meet him outside of here because I’ll still get fined,” Green said Saturday. “But I can meet him in the streets any day.

“You can say something like, ‘Meet you at the bus.’ I’m going to keep taking care of my family. I ain’t going to meet you at the bus. But the summer, you can meet anybody anywhere, so all this, ‘Meet me outside,’ ‘Meet me at the bus’ . . . I ain’t going to give up money for that. If you want to see me somewhere else, that’s fine. Any time.”

Though there was speculation Thompson could receive a one-game suspension from the league office, he instead was fined $25,000 by failure to leave the court in a timely manner and for shoving the ball into Green’s face.

That was avoided suspension may be why on Saturday Thompson seemed less concerned with inviting an altercation with Green or anyone else.

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“It's just basketball,” he said before the Cavaliers went through a light workout. “It's just a competitive sport. Of course we're going to get irritated with each other, just because we're both competitors and we both want it all. But it never goes off the court. Maybe for some guys it does, but not for me.”

While Green said he had no problem with Thompson avoiding suspension -- “I’d rather a guy not get suspended” -- he also suspects the discipline might have been different if the roles were reversed.

“I maybe would have gotten suspended,” Green said. “But ain't nobody else me. So I really don't care about that. I'll take that. It comes with a lot of other great (stuff). So it's all good.”

It because evident late in Game 1 that tempers grew hotter than they were at the start of the series. There was the verbal altercation between Stephen Curry and LeBron James, followed by Thompson’s aggressive foul on Livingston, which preceded the ejection.

Game 2 could prove equally edgy, if not more so.

“It should,” Green said. “You're trying to win championships, so there should be emotions involved. If not, then whoever's emotions aren't involved should go sit down somewhere. This is what you work your whole life for, so it should carry over.

“Will it be more controlled? Probably. But the intensity should carry over when you're trying to win in the NBA Finals.”

With the Warriors being such heavy favorites, it’s possible Cleveland is trying to prove they belong on this stage and they’re not going go out quietly.

“Whenever you see a team for four straight Finals, you start not liking each other,” Thompson said. “It's two competitive franchises that want to hoist the Larry O'Brien Trophy. So like any playoff series, after a couple games, guys get irritated.

“But for us it starts in Game 1, because we've seen these guys the last couple years.”